Six windows on Ukraine: Belonging.

”The key to solving the world’s urgent problems may lie within Ukraine — from disinformation to modern warfare. We’ve lived these crises and learned how to resist them.”

For our fifth season, Ukrainian Spaces returns to where it began: revisiting six Ukrainians from the 2022 inaugural season to see how hope, resistance, and resilience have shaped their lives. Across six episodes—fear, belonging, language, love, resistance, and the future—our guests reflect on the past, share intimate stories, and write letters to their former selves. A return and continuation, this season reminds us that Ukraine’s story is best told by Ukrainians themselves.
In the second episode of the season, Ukrainian Spaces returns to a conversation that began in 2022 and follows it to its consequences.

Ukrainian writer and thinker Sasha Dovzhyk joins Maksym and Val to reflect on belonging, return, and what happens when resistance ideas conceived during the darkest hours of the 2022 invasion grew into a trailblazing institution advancing justice in wartime Ukraine. When she first appeared on the podcast during the early months of the full-scale invasion, Sasha was living in London, speaking from within the Ukrainian diaspora. Since then, she has returned to Ukraine and helped turn those ideas into powerful action.

Originally from Zaporizhzhia, Sasha is a Ukrainian writer, curator and the founder of INDEX: Institute for Documentation and Exchange in Lviv. In this episode, she speaks about building knowledge as a form of justice, documenting loss and resistance, and why Ukraine’s experience with anti-imperial resistance matters far beyond its borders. The conversation reflects on imperial cultural erasure, memory, and the responsibility of storytelling in wartime.

Dovzhyk’s letter to her 2022 self, which anchors her story, reads: “Home will find you.”

Ukrainian Spaces is more than a podcast; it's a movement. It's about reclaiming the Ukrainian story, breaking free from outdated Ukrainian stereotypes, and understanding the complex roots of Ukraine's present and future. Together, we can unravel the threads of Ukrainian history and witness the unwavering spirit of a nation fighting for its right to exist.
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This season, Ukrainian Spaces returns in partnership with Ukrainska Pravda – one of Ukraine’s most trusted voices for truth and freedom. Stand with independent Ukrainian journalism. You can also make a donation through their website or join their Patreon community. Every contribution keeps the story alive.